Meet Salus University Speech-Language Institute, located in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. The Institute provides pediatric and adult aphasia treatment services that are individually tailored to each person’s needs. Keep reading to learn more about their individual and group services.

2016 Ryan Brandenberg Photography

Services Provided at Salus University

In 2015, Salus University, a health sciences university in Elkins Park, PA, welcomed its first class of graduate students studying speech-language pathology. As part of the clinical program, Salus created the Speech-Language Institute, a student-run clinic where clients of all ages with a variety of communication and swallowing disorders receive assessment, diagnostic and treatment services free of charge. Students conduct care under the supervision of a licensed and certified speech-language pathologist.

Clients with aphasia are referred from area physician practices, rehab and acute care hospitals and local SLP practitioners for ongoing intervention. Students conduct formal and informal evaluations, develop plans of care with clients and caregivers needs in mind and provide therapy to improve functional communication through a variety of modalities, including augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Students and supervisors are challenged to answer the language needs of our clients including speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Finding Salus University

Clients and their caregivers may be introduced to our services by their physicians or local Speech-Language Pathologists and other members of the interdisciplinary team who have been educated by the clinical providers here at Salus.

We provide presentations to community and religious groups on a variety of communication topics and encourage folks to follow-up with the clinic for further information. Finally, we travel to many local health and senior fairs and present wellness information and conduct screenings to assist in identifying those who may needs more focused services.

What Makes Salus University Different?

Infusing the requirements of graduate education into service provision ensures clients state of the art, evidence-based assessment and therapy. Students who are eager to apply their classroom learning to client care are mentored by experts in the field of communication sciences and disorders.

The clients benefit from the strong team-based approach of our clinic and the interprofessional collaboration of other programs here at the university, including audiology, occupational therapy and vision rehabilitation.

What We Love About Salus University

Communication skills are so often taken for granted and not until they are lost does an individual really see what a gift words are! Finding a way to allow a client to express himself – whether it be through verbalizations, gestures or writing, once it is discovered and the client is reconnected to a skills that had been lost is a joy-filled process.

A Salus University Success Story

We have a younger gentleman that comes to the clinic two times per week. He is in his 40s, a pharmacist by trade and a father of two kids, a boy and a girl. He had an aneurysm about one year ago that left him with significant physical deficits including right hemiplegia and visual field cut. He also has experienced apraxia of speech and expressive aphasia.

Upon his arrival to the clinic, he had not had language therapy in about six months because his insurance benefit exhausted and he couldn’t afford the private pay rates of the local hospital. He had very limited functional language, mostly communicating with gestures and vocalizations like “Woo-Hoo” and “Yo-Yo-Yo.”

Through a well-structure therapy plan, organized by the SLP students and supervisors and under considerations made by the client and his family, he is now using 7-10 word sentences to make his needs known, including ordering his favorite Chinese food and beating his kids in board games!